There are numerous indicia of water phenomena that are of value to oceanographers, hydrologists and surveyors as well as to the captain and crew of surface or subsurface vessels. For example, water temperature, depth, conductivity, salinity, sound speed, optical properties, nutrient availability, etc., may provide valuable information for a number of divergent uses. This information may be used to expand the knowledge base of ocean parameters in general, or may be useful in navigation, sonar communication and the like.
Historically, data collection has been completed using instruments lowered from ships, or moored instrument arrays which must be recovered. The cost of operating a manned vessel on the high seas often is prohibitive. Moreover, vessel availability cannot always be assured. Oceanographic experiments are thus constrained in many cases by factors other than the phenomenon which is intended for study.
There are numerous apparatus available to measure various ocean parameters. One common apparatus consists of a set of small probes attached to a large metal rosette wheel. The rosette is lowered on a cable down to the seafloor, and the water properties are observed via a conducting cable connecting the apparatus to a remotely operated computer. In other systems instruments are lowered into the water on a cable and data is recorded on an on-board data recorder. The data is then transferred to another computer for review and analysis. However, these and other known apparatus have many disadvantages. Most existing devices require extra equipment such as a separate computer or other device to review data along with other connectors and cables to connect the sensor apparatus to the computer. Another common disadvantage is a delay in seeing the collected data because downloading and processing data can be complicated and time consuming. Many existing underwater sensor apparatus are cumbersome to handle and deploy and may require a special winch for handling. In addition, existing underwater sensor apparatus require the user to take field notes for every cast and retrieval point to record position, time and date of each deployment.